Around 10 pm on Tuesday, April 1st, our phones went nuts with a tornado warning. I would have expected a tornado watch first, but no, just the warning. Shortly afterwards, it started to pour rain from the sky with pea sized hail. It was windy, but not tornado windy. The warning claimed a possibility of quarter sized hail and 100 mph winds.

Kate asked whether we should seek shelter, but there was not really a lot in the way of shelter at the campground. Kate grabbed the soft sided cat carrier from the loft to get prepared. John stepped outside to look around, waded to the front of the RV, and heard something that sounded like a freight train in the distance. (Another visitor confirmed hearing the train sound the next morning.) John alerted Kate, waded to the truck in two inches of water, grabbed the carrier, and returned – already soaked. MacKie dove into the soft sided carrier, but dove back out when it was not fully zipped. After getting both cats stuffed in the carriers, we loaded them in the truck, drove to the main bathrooms, and sheltered in the bathroom with two cats and an inch of water. The cats yowled the entire time from the RV to the bathrooms. We sheltered for 20 to 30 minutes, until the storm passed.

We chose the main bathrooms because they were part of the only building that was not a corrugated aluminum structure or trailer. It also had shower stalls that provided some interior supports and protection.

The storm never got excessively bad in our location, but it was pretty traumatic for the cats. They never want to do that again. The soft sided carrier that we stuffed MacKie in has mesh on the top. He might never forgive us for letting him get rained on.

Here are some articles on the weather system that was producing tornadoes and damaging winds – here and here and here. It looks like this weather system may have produced 85 tornadoes.

⁺ Someone should tell Kate that it is not safe to stand near doors and windows during a tornado.